This weekend, people will flock to churches all across our country to celebrate Easter. And we want their experience to be life changing. While there is a lot of physical preparation involved in making the Easter experience amazing, there is a lot of spiritual preparation that must happen to make the experience not only amazing but life changing.

Here are a few things you can be praying for your church over the next few days as we lead up to Easter…

Pray for all the volunteers who will serve at your church. Every single volunteer (no matter what job they have) plays an important part because together we make up the experience as a whole.

Pray for your worship team (and production team if you have one). Pray for their energy and stamina to sustain them through the extra worship experiences.

Pray for your children’s ministry. Did you know that 2 out of 3 people who give their lives to Christ do so before the age of 18? Children’s ministry is essential to the body of Christ.

Pray for the people who have been invited to church for the first time. Pray that they would not let anything keep them from attending church this weekend.

Pray for your church staff and your Pastor and their families. Pray for their health and their protection. Pray for your pastor as he prepares his message.

Pray for the people’s lives to be impacted and changed.

I am praying for you as you invite people to church this week. And I am praying that this year, no matter where you are in your walk with Christ that you would be able to move past the traditions of Easter and truly take the time to celebrate our risen Savior.

So I thought I would do a special addition of my series How to Pray. Even though I have at least one more post in mind for this series (how to pray for your church) I thought I would do a special Christmas edition.

Christmas time is hectic for everyone, no doubt we all need prayer during the Christmas season. So as you steal away some time to pray and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas, here are some things that you can specifically pray for your church and church staff…

for all of the details in planning a Christmas eve service to come together

for all of the people thinking about trying church for the first time (or first time in a long time) to venture out and attend a service

for the staff wives who have to bear the weight taking care of family business

for the your pastor as he prepares his Christmas messages

for your staff as they hammer out so many details to pull off a great series

for there to be plenty of volunteers throughout the month (from childcare to set up and tear down)

for lives to be changed

for the people of your church to truly worship Christ, Emmanuel, God sent to be with us this Christmas season

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be
with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”- Isaiah 7:14

The past few weeks I have been doing a series on how to pray for your church (you can see all parts under the category "prayer" on the right side bar.) Today I want to give a list of suggestions on how to pray for our children.

My dad was a pastor all of my life. I think my parents did a great job balancing ministry and family. I did not grow up hating the church. Yes, hurtful things happen in the ministry, but my parents helped me to understand that hurtful things are a part of life. There are so many perks to being a pastor's kid. People love pastor's kids.

Many of the prayer suggestions are things we should all pray for our children, no matter what our profession is.

My greatest prayer for my boys concerning ministry is that Steven and I would instill in them a love for the church because it is the hope of the world.

In light of this, pray for our children…

to grow up to love God and love the church

to remain healthy

to make the right friends

to come to know God at an early age

to embrace the role God has given them

to be positive leaders among others their age

to find places in the church where they can serve and use their gifts

for them to focus on all the positives of ministry and not the negatives

for them to understand and regularly practice forgiveness

for them to love people

Psalm 71:17 Since my youth, oh God, You have taught me, and to this day I declare Your marvelous deeds.

Being a pastor's wife comes with many challenges. Church work is often physically, emotionally and spiritually draining. It is one of those jobs that you can never leave at work. It requires long hours and work on the the weekends.

Here are some ways that you can pray for our pastors' wives…

to be supportive

to know when to have important discussions

to form trustworthy friendships

to grow personally in their relationship with the Lord

to have just the right words at just the right time

to know when to critique and when to praise

to have wisdom in parenting children

to have patience on Saturday (often a very stressful day)

Colossians 1:9-10 (from the NLT version)So we have continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives and we ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to know God better.

You can find the other parts of this series under the category prayer in the right sidebar.

I got so many great comments about my post on how to pray for your pastor. Thank you! You don't know how awesome it feels to know that so many people are praying for my husband and were so glad to have specific things to pray.

So today I am going to give you some specific things to pray for our lead church staff members. Our church staff is amazing. They take care of so many details that it frees my husband up to focus on hearing from God and preparing his message. They too carry a heavy burden for our church and our city. Remember that our church is very young. Most of the people that work for Elevation do not have a background in church work. Because of our rapid growth, our staff members are constantly trying to create systems that make Elevation run like a well oiled machine. This can be difficult and stressful.

Pray for them…

To maintain their personal relationship with the Lord

To hear from the Lord

To have creativity

To lead those under them with authority and love

To make good hires

To be great husbands and fathers

To create good systems at work

To have wisdom in the decisions that they make

To be able to lead and motivate volunteers

Ephesians 1:16-17I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in all my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

The Lord seems to be speaking very clearly about the importance of prayer this week. Once a month a few of our staff wives and I get together for lunch. Each month I select a message for us to listen to before hand and then we discuss it at lunch. This month we watched a dvd of Jim Cymbala preaching a message called "My house shall be called a house of prayer." It was no coincidence that this was what I needed to hear this week. God seems to be calling me to a higher level in my personal prayer life but He also is confirming to me how people are praying for me and my family on a regular basis.

I can't tell you how many times in the last month I have met someone that tells me, "I pray for you and your family every day." Whenever this happens, I always want to spill over with specifics for that person to pray because I value this so much. It seems that the more our church grows, the more the enemy attacks (or as my husband's favorite preacher,TD Jakes, says "New levels bring new devils."). I value and covet the prayers of our friends and church members. I believe with all my heart that God's way of pouring out blessings, protection and grace (among many other things) is through prayer.

So in light of this, I thought I would do a series on my blog for the next few weeks about how you can pray for your pastor, his family, our staff, our staff wives and our church.

So today is part one, How to Pray for Your Pastor…

to lead with authority and love

to stay tightly connected to the Lord

to have wisdom in making decisions

to continue to have a God-given vision for our church

to find time to relax and unwind

for his health (mental and physical)

for longevity in ministry

for purity

to be a great husband and father

for protection from the enemy and from people who want to cause harm

for him as he prepares his message each week

to preach each week with confidence and clarity

specifically pray for him on Saturdays, this is a day of great attack for him

Today a fellow pastor's wife friend of mine emailed me this verse and it was so timely…

Call unto Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3